Well, coincidentally, this is true story which happened to me this weekend.

I was at a department store, and at the checkout was a woman (not sure about her ethnicity, possibly Indian). She spoke English just fine- but her name tag said "Anal".

Now, that's a name I might change on my own...

LOL! I tried babylon.com to see if it can translate this name from Hindi to English and came up with zilch... Yep, I'd change that name too.... but I think we've achieved something very rare and therefore very precious in this thread... CONSENSUS that an employer shouldn't be permitted to force his employees to change their name.

I agree with Stardove. The language of this country is English. Generations who have come here before have learned it.

Exactly who is fighting that or is it a strawman? Are we encountering illiterate immigrants?

Twenty years ago I told my husband I would love to work in a program to teach standard American English to pre-schoolers who needed that help. I'm an English linguist. There was no such program.

Children who cannot speak, read and write standard American English tend to do poorly in school. Their parents have more trouble also. One group stands out--Asian Americans learn English and their children do more than well. We have a large Korean-American community in my county and their children are getting top honors in our school system.

I admire the French-speakers in Quebec Providence, but they were French-speaking from the beginning.

English has replaced French as the diplomatic language. All sorts of diversity is fine with me, but English is our national language and has always been.

Cutting to the chase: Simple English is similar to English, but it only uses basic words.

Articles in the Simple English Wikipedia use fewer words and easier grammar than the Ordinary English Wikipedia. The Simple English Wikipedia is also for people with different needs, such as students, children, adults with learning difficulties and people who are trying to learn English. Other people use the Simple English Wikipedia because simple language helps them to understand unfamiliar topics or complex ideas.

When the Simple English Wikipedia began, the Ordinary English Wikipedia already had 150,000 articles, and seven other Wikipedias in other languages had over 15,000 articles. Since the other Wikipedias already have so many articles, most Simple English articles take articles from other Wikipedias and make them simple; they are usually not new articles.

This makes Simple English articles a good way to understand difficult articles from the ordinary English Wikipedia. If someone cannot understand an idea in complex English, they can read the Simple English article. For this reason, people writing Simple English articles should put in "interwiki links" to and from the other Wikipedias. Also, it is good to always look at all versions in all languages, to get new ideas.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post "Thou shalt not steal", Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment." -- George Carlin

I think everyone knows how to pronounce Juan and joachim. But I do see alot of this with Asians. They take on an anglo name all the time for professional reasons. They just don't want thier difficult (for mainstream americans) names getting in the way of their career.

Which is amazing! You would never find an american culture that would do that! We tend to think of ourselves as the center of the universe. sad.